


Winter's Crown

by orphan_account



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe, Book: The World of Ice and Fire, Essays, Gen, House Stark, Pseudo-History, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 02:31:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5989045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Rickard Stark had other ambitions? </p><p>Or, a history of the Starks, from Torrhen to Rickard, in a world where they spent two and a half centuries building up their wealth and waiting for the perfect moment to declare their independence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winter's Crown

**Torrhen Stark** surrendered his crown and kneeled before Aegon the Conqueror, but he never forgot that he was a king from the most ancient house in Westeros while the Targaryens were no more than Valyrian exiles without a drop of noble blood in their veins.

(It would almost be stranger if he had, though he was twenty-six years old and not yet set in his ways, after growing up in the shadow of his father King Eddard Forkbeard and alongside his formidable younger sisters, Lyra and Jorelle, who insisted upon being addressed as princesses long after their brother surrendered his crown.)

"The King Who Knelt" locked himself in his solar upon his return from Aegon's coronation in the company of his half-brother Brandon Snow, who he had legitimized, and in that room they cemented their plans for the next two hundred years. Afterwards, Torrhen assigned his brother the task of performing a full survey of the North. Brandon set out immediately, some say without pausing to bid farewell to Torrhen's wife Lyanna Reed and their four young children.

Torrhen himself went to work crafting a plan to revitalize the North and consoling his lords. He was no longer their king in name, but his focus was still the prosperity and might of his people. Most truly believed that he had their best interests in heart after the Field of Fire, but others perceived his borrowing from the Iron Throne and the Iron Bank as personally motivated. Those who did went into exile in Essos where they formed the Company of the Rose, a sellsword company that lasted for centuries before were recalled home by Rickard Stark.

Torrhen's plan was, in its essence, a simple expansion of public works and investiture by Winterfell, but the gold and labor involved meant it took centuries to pay off.

His actions were met with no resistance from the Iron Throne, and the new king was glad to lend the old one money. Aegon the Conqueror did not worry about Torrhen (re)building castles and roads, let alone digging canals, planning cities, and breeding hardier livestock that were more suited to surviving the long and harsh winters of the North. Why should he fear when he had proven, at Harrenhal, what a dragon could do to the grandest castle ever built?

Their indifference has become legendary, to the point that Maester Reuel claims Orys Baratheon laughed and said, "It seems we need not fear the wolves while the King Who Knelt is planting turnips!" when Torrhen ordered his farmers to implement a four-field rotation system instead of the previous two-field rotation.

The sole surviving record of the Small Council paying Torrhen any attention at all is when Torrhen granted the reconstructed Moat Cailin to his half-brother. "Why not one of his sons?" Daemon Velaryon asked, and Edmyn Tully speculated that the castle was considered unworthy of a trueborn Stark without the duty of protecting the North from Rivermen. Any other conversations about Torrhen and the Northern Renewal went unrecorded.

Torrhen then petitioned Aegon to make his half-brother _lord_ of Moat Cailin, not merely its master, a rare fate for even a royal bastard. Aegon agreed, and Brandon Snow became the Lord of Moat Cailin and the founder of House Branson.

It was Brandon Snow who wrote the famous line that all histories of House Stark under the early Targaryens must quote: "A king might kneel and surrender his crown, but what is to stop his heir from rising up on his two feet and reclaiming what’s his by rights?"

The King Who Knelt was so eager to pass unnoticed that he did not protest when Rhaenys Targaryen arranged for his youngest child and only daughter, Bethany, to marry Ronnel Arryn. His sons were not so complacent, and they refused to attend her wedding to "that damn Andal." Lyall, Conan, and Conor might have understood their father's plans for House Stark, but that did not mean that they appreciated losing their sister to a man they found unworthy. They bitterly resented the marriage, and they were enraged, years later, when her children were killed and she was taken prisoner by Ronnel's brother Jonos.

 **Lyall the Restorer** continued Torrhen's work dutifully after his father died in 33. He oversaw the completion of the roads and canals, and he began the construction of the great city of Salt Harbor.

Lyall's reign overlapped with that of Maegor the Cruel, and Lyall was not opposed to manipulating the king's madness for his own gain. Lyall made no demands of Maegor in recompense after the murders of his brother-in-law and nieces and nephews, and he went so far as to thank the usurper king for sending Bethany home after the execution of Jonos Arryn. This endeared him to Maegor and allowed Lyall to act more independently of the Iron Throne than Maegor would allow any other lord paramount during his reign.

"The Restorer" used his relative independence to return the North to the laws and customs of the First Men before the Andals came (and before his ancestors began adopting the Andal laws that appealed to them). The laws reintroduced were relatively minor, but they became the bedrock upon which the Northmen based their later religious revival during the rule of Rodwell Tall-Talker. The marriage laws, for instance, were revolutionary in comparison to the Faith's rules concerning the same: Brides and bridegrooms had a say in their betrothals, divorces were allowed and easily performed, and children born out of wedlock were not denied an inheritance, though they still came after any trueborn children in the line of succession.

His most daring move was claiming that House Stark's frequent rivals House Bolton were plotting against the paranoid king, and he and his bannermen marched on the Dreadfort.

Lyall died during the fighting, but his eldest son **Ellard** took up their ancestral great sword Ice and defeated the Boltons. Afterwards, Ellard ordered the Dreadfort torn down and granted half the Bolton lands to his uncle Conan, who founded House Bullock of Greensward, and the other half to Conan's twin Conor, who founded House Swynford of Swynford.

Maegor the Cruel flew to Winterfell, on Balerion, to personally thank Ellard for destroying his supposed enemies.

Ellard had a relatively poor relationship with Maegor's successor Jaehaerys and his sister-wife Alysanne in contrast. The couple toured the North early in their reign, to exhibit their power and glory, out of concern that House Stark continued to sympathize with their dead usurper uncle, and Alysanne famously flew to see the Wall during the visit when Ellard's entertainments bored her. She was so enchanted with the Night's Watch that she paid for a new castle to be built with her jewelry, and she forced the Starks to part with a considerable area of land and grant it to the black brothers, which was then known as the "New Gift."

Ellard was wroth at the loss of the New Gift (as were many of his bannermen, especially House Umber), and his younger half-brother Mors wrote to the Citadel to demand information on previous forced land grants. The maesters were not forthcoming, and Mors suspected that it was because Jaehaerys and Alysanne had sent their son Vaegon the Dragonless to Oldtown to forge his chain.

Ellard's son **Benjen** was the Stark in Winterfell when the city of Salt Harbor was finished, on the western shore, and Benjen granted the seat to Mors, who became the founder of House Salter and married his half-niece Marla Stark at her lord brother's behest.

Benjen's tenure was one of transition and solidification as Torrhen's plans came to fruition, and House Stark began to pay off their debts to the Iron Throne, to the Iron Bank, and to House Manderly.

It was his elder son Rickon who paid off their debts, but " **Rickon the Rich** " did not have long to enjoy the North's financial independence. He died young, leaving behind an infant son, a powerless widow, and an ambitious brother.

Gillian Glover was Rickon's widow and therefore regent to their only child **Cregan** , later known as the "One Day Hand" and the "Old Man in the North." House Glover had served the Starks loyally for centuries, but no one ever forgot that they were  _masters,_ not  _lords._ Her brothers did defend her regency, but they had little influence, especially when their rival was a Stark scion with a Karstark bride and three fine sons of his own. Bennard did not seek Winterfell for himself, but it made sense to a great many people that young Cregan's well-respected uncle and heir should be his regent.

Gillian was forced to buy friends from among her son’s bannermen. The North would never be as rich as the Westerlands or the Reach, but there was no shame in being the third richest of the Seven Kingdoms. Gillian did not spend her son's income as lavishly as Tymond Lannister or Matthos Tyrell did theirs, and the court at Winterfell remained a modest one during the early years of the Targaryen dynasty; but Gillian spent gold with military precision, patronizing singers who wrote songs glorifying House Stark, their bannermen, and the history of the North, and paying for repairs for her bannermen's holdings as well as their own. "Gillian the Beloved" earned their devotion, and by the end of her regency, no one in Westeros was as loved and respected as Gillian Glover was in the North, not even King Jaehaerys the Conciliator and the Good Queen Alysanne. (It helped that the Northerners hated the now elderly king and queen and considered Gillian their shield against the Targaryens.)

Bennard had to stand down, but Gillian first bought him off by granting his sons lordships of their own, all of them previously held by heiresses who had married the Kings of Winter and had their demesnes consumed by that of House Stark. Benjen, Brandon, and Elric became the first lords of House Greywolf of Wolf Hall, House Fisher of Stony Shore, and House Slate of Blackpool in centuries, and fortunately the income of Winterfell was now large enough to suffer the losses of such rich seats.

Gillian's triumph in the North made her confident when she went south to attend the Great Council of 101, and she fought hard in defense of Rhaenys Targaryen, the Queen Who Never Was, in her son’s name. Her anger when Rhaenys's claim lost to her cousin Viserys's was great, and she asked Jaehaerys, then an old man, if she had failed him in her four years as regent of the North. "No, indeed," he said with a grandfatherly smile, and she demanded in reply, "Then why do you deny your granddaughter her rights?" The Old King hastily made his excuses and fled.

She returned home in a rage, and she never forgot the insult Jaehaerys had paid her and, therefore, to House Stark. "The King Who Knelt, Bethany the Bride, the New Gift, and now this," she wrote in a letter to her younger sister Lyarra, Lady of Barrow Hall. "What insult shall we suffer next? Do you think that they will burn down our castles and feast upon our cattle?"

They were lucky that the Targaryens didn't burn down the castle, for Winterfell was then filled with children. Upon becoming regent, Gillian had sent for the children of the Northern lords to come to Winterfell in order to serve as Cregan's companions and her own foster children and hostages, and thus began the tradition of the Northern lords sending their children to Winterfell to foster. This, incidentally, allowed House Stark to control the education of their lords and ladies, and they trained them to be loyal to the Starks and their schemes as well as capable military commanders.

Cregan came to power in 115 as a man of eighteen, and Gillian gracefully retired to her dower lands to finally enjoy a private life at the age of thirty-seven. She wrote long letters to her family about politics, had an affair with a man-at-arms, and bore a bastard daughter named Melara Snow.

Her son celebrated his freedom more conventionally. Cregan married one of his former companions, Arra Norrey, within a few months of his majority. The marriage did not result in surviving issue, and neither did his second, to his cousin Lynara Stark.

Cregan was twice a widower and still childless when the Targaryen succession dispute came to war, and he agreed to support the Blacks in the Dance of Dragons because Rhaenyra's sons from her first marriage were the rightful heirs of their grandmother Rhaenys. He did not agree at once, however, and waited until he knew what Prince Jacaerys was willing to offer him in return for his support — in the end, a royal bride, though which one was left unspecified. Their agreement became known as the Pact of Ice and Fire.

But Cregan could not leave at once, or so he said. It was autumn, and the North needed a Stark in Winterfell more than they did typically. Cregan sent an army of two thousand men south under the command of his cousin Rodrik Dustin (aka "Roddy the Ruin," leader of the Winter Wolves) while he oversaw the final harvest. Cregan did not march south until the very end of the war, and he joined forces with the Lads of the Riverlands as they steadily moved south to King's Landing where they discovered that Aegon II was dead and that Rhaenyra's eldest surviving son had been proclaimed king as Aegon III.

Cregan did not want the young prince as his king because _Aegon_ was not descended from the Queen Who Never Was, unlike his half-sisters Baela and Rhaena, but no one but the Northmen wanted Baela as their queen — not even Baela and Rhaena. Cregan accepted Aegon's ascension and wrested control of the government, such as it was, for six days (called "the Hour of the Wolf") as he deliberated upon the fates of those who had poisoned the new king's uncle Aegon II. He showed mercy when Baela and Rhaena pleaded for the life of their grandfather Corlys Velaryon, a rare showing of heart from an infamously cold man.

The princesses offered him the choice of either as his bride to fulfill the Pact of Ice and Fire, but he decided to marry Alysanne Blackwood instead. Afterwards, Cregan and his bride returned home to Winterfell, and he stirred from Winterfell butbut once thereafter.

It was during Cregan's rule that the last dragon died, in 153, and he was said to have laughed aloud and kissed Black Aly, in public, when he heard the news. There is no contemporary account of this, however, so it could be no more than a popular legend that became attached to him _because_ it does not fit his otherwise grim character.

He had no cause to smile when his sons went south during the reign of Aegon's elder son Daeron. Alysanne had given him three desperately needed sons and one daughter, Lyessa, who married an Umber, and Jonnel, Barthogan, and Brandon joined the Young Dragon in his Conquest of Dorne. In Dorne, Jonnel lost his eye, and Barth Blacksword lost his life. Daeron likewise died there, slain by the Dornish under a peace banner, and his brother Baelor chose to make peace instead of seeking vengeance against the Dornish. Baelor locked away his sisters in the Maidenvault as well, denying Cregan's son the promised Targaryen bride.

Cregan was wroth, and he challenged Baelor to a trial by combat. The king's cousin Aemon Dragonknight fought in his stead and overcame the king's accuser, but the Dragonknight said he had never fought a finer swordsman than the now elderly Lord of Winterfell.

Jonnel instead married Jeyne Manderly, by whom he had two daughters.

Cregan died at the age of eighty-two, earning him the title "The Old Man of the North," but his son did not share his longevity. **Jonnel One-Eye**  served as the Lord of Winterfell for less than a full year. He died in a Skagosi uprising in 180, and the North erupted into chaos after his death.

His elder daughter Serena, then eighteen and unmarried, was his heir according to both the First Men and the Andals, but even in the North, men were loath to follow a woman.

The exact circumstances of her uncle **Brandon** 's coup are unknown, but historians agree that he had widespread support because of his sex, his two grown sons, and the promise of his daughters' hands in marriage.

His elder daughter, Mariah, married the Lord of Cerwyn to earn the support of the Starks' nearest neighbors while the younger, Sarra, married Osric Umber, Lord of Last Hearth, in order to end House Umber's lukewarm support for Serena. Brandon's sister Lyessa and her husband Jon Umber, Lord Umber's uncle, had tried to rile his house into action, but one betrothal was enough to silence all but Lyessa herself, who took her husband into an informal exile in the Free Cities until her eventual death in Lys.

That solved, Brandon negated the conflict between him and his nieces by marrying them to his sons, Rodwell and Edric.

Brandon otherwise had a normal reign with the only other notable event being the quarrel between the Flints of Widow's Watch and the Flints of Flint's Finger, but popular culture still remembers Brandon as "the Wicked Uncle."

His elder son **Rodwell Tall-Talker** succeeded him upon his death, and **Serena** became the Lady of Winterfell as consort instead of regnant.

The Tall-Talker became known as such because of the excuses he sent Daeron II for his neutral stance during the Blackfyre Rebellion. He claimed that the Skagosi were still rebellious and that the Free Folk were amassing north of the Wall. (It was a lie he forgot to tell the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, who wrote Daeron to reassure him when the king expressed his concerns.) Truthfully, Rodwell was preoccupied with negotiating trade agreements with the Free Cities and building undercities below each town in the North.

His marriage to Serena was childless due to the fact that "Proud Sis" threatened to geld him if he ever touched her, but his late brother Edric had three children with Sansa, Rodwell's heir Beren and two daughters, Raya and Arsa.

Rodwell died during the Great Spring Sickness, which also killed Daeron. It is one of history's amusing coincidences.

Whether they were amused or not we don't know, but the Starks were certainly grateful that **Bloody**   **Beren** had inherited at the dawn of Aerys's reign. "Beren is not Rodwell's son but his nephew, and he cannot inherit the Targaryens' dislike," Beren's sister Raya, wife of Ser Myron Manderly, wrote. The Starks were well-aware that they had to appear to play the game of thrones in order to hide their true goals from the Southrons, until they struck.

This "bloody" new lord was more warlike than his uncle, and during the reign of Aerys I, he dealt with Dagon Greyjoy and the Ironborn while Aerys read books and his Hand Brynden Bloodraven plotted against the remaining Blackfyres. He sailed with the western navy of the North, anchored in Salt Harbor, Stony Shore, and Bear Island, to the Iron Islands and killed Lord Greyjoy in single combat. Beren confiscated the rest of the Iron Fleet for himself, but he died from an untreated wound that had become infected soon after his return to Winterfell.

His son **Willam the Young** , a boy of twelve, was his uncontested heir, but there were debated over who would be his regent until he came of age. His mother Lorra Magnar was considered untrustworthy because she was Skagosi, and each of Beren's sisters and aunts claimed that they were the best suited for the task, including the embittered and very much alive Serena.

The debate continued for months until the sudden and unexpected arrival of Prince Aegon (later Aegon V) and his knight-master Ser Duncan the Tall. Aegon wrote to King's Landing for the king's judgement, and Lord Bloodraven settled the matter by having Willam declared of age prematurely.

Willam died prematurely, too, fighting against the Free Folk under the command of the King-Beyond-the-Wall Raymun Redbeard. His wife Melantha Blackwood, sister to Aegon's wife Betha, died soon afterwards in childbirth with twins Brandon and Benjen, though Benjen died mere hours after his mother and Brandon, three years later.

Willam's brother Artos the Implacable then became the regent for his four-year-old son **Edwyle the Ever-Ready** and guardian to him, his two-year-old sister Jocelyn, and the infant Brandon. He was as implacable as his nickname suggests as well as fiercely proud of his Northern heritage, a quality he instilled in his nephew.

Artos found himself in the same position as his ancestor Gillian Glover when he was called to vote at the Great Council of 233 in Edwyle's name, but unlike Gillian, he voted for the pragmatic option: Aegon V was Lord Stark's uncle, and Artos believed that Betha Blackwood would favor the North and encourage her husband to do the same in the memory of her dead sister.

Aegon V won crowned king, and he rewarded Artos's vote by sending grain and gold northwards during a difficult winter while Black Betha invited her niece Jocelyn to join her household as a lady-in-waiting. Artos and his wife Lysara Karstark found Jocelyn a difficult child, and they were glad to send her away to a doting aunt who could teach her queenly graces. They could not know how they would come to regret it.

Edwyle came of age in 240, but his uncle Artos remained his most loyal adviser and most steadfast supporter until his death. (His father's other brother, Rodrik the Wandering Wolf, was absent for most of Edwyle's life, and his four aunts preferred to live quiet lives on their husbands' lands.) It was on Artos's advice that Edwyle married Marna Locke, a Northwoman of excellent lineage, unlike his Riverlander mother, and it was in reward for Artos's long years of service that Edwyle granted him the right to form a cadet house with a lordship of his own. Artos's sons were the first Ravenshaws of Ravenshaw.

In contrast, his sister Jocelyn did not learn from the example of their Northern kin or her aunt the queen, and she embarrassed House Stark greatly. Jocelyn was close to her royal cousins, and while she disdained Duncan's marriage to Jenny of Oldstones, she admired Jaehaerys and Shaera for their daring.

In 242 she eloped with Ser Benedict Royce, a younger son of Runestone, against the wishes of her aunt and brother. Edwyle was furious because he had hoped to marry his sister to Lord Dustin or the heir of Swynford, but Marna calmed him and convinced him there was nothing to be done but to accept the marriage. He invited Jocelyn and her husband to make their home at Winterfell, and their three daughters all married Northern lords.

Edwyle raised his only legitimate child, his son **Rickard** , with care to ensure that he understood the importance of House Stark's centuries of work, especially when that work looked very nearly complete.

Rickard did understand, and he married the Wandering Wolf's younger daughter, his first cousin once removed, Lyarra as if to confirm that. It was reportedly a love match. They had four children, each named for a Stark ancestor: Brandon, Eddard, Lyanna, and Benjen.

These centuries of planning came to fruition in 276 when spring came and the lords and ladies of the North converged on Winterfell for a week of feasts and meetings. The Northmen had made this a habit ever since Torrhen knelt, and they used these meetings to discuss the damages caused by winter and plan for the future, to bring their children to Winterfell to be fostered, and to renew the bonds of friendship between their families. The titleholders among them had a private conference as always, but this one held more weight than those of previous years.

It is unknown what the Northmen said in that room, but playwright Lyra Ashwood's version of events looms large in the popular consciousness.

From **Winter's Crown** (966):

 

> Wyman Manderly: Shall we?
> 
> Rickard Stark: Yes.
> 
> Jon "Greatjon" Umber: When?
> 
> Rickard Stark: Soon.


End file.
